Home > Academic Courses and Programs > Spring Break Seminars> Environmental Justice and Human Rights Seminar
AFAM 33601 / CSC 33976
Immersion Dates: Saturday, March 6 – Sunday, March 14, 2010
Size: 11students
Cost: $265 fee and $100 for New Orleans expenses
Application: Apply online (date TBD)
Application Deadline: 11:59 p.m. EST, Thursday, January 14, 2010
Seminar Director: Cynthia Toms Smedley
Seminar Assistant: Mary Juckett
Graduate Student Leader: Thomas Robertson
Introduction
Set in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, this seminar will explore how impoverished communities in Louisiana were affected from the perspectives of environmental justice and theology. Specifically, we will critically reflect on the historical, political, and economic issues that created a culture of poverty in these areas. The course will also analyze the nexus between historical social inequalities and current environmental injustices. To give students the tools to determine what environmental justice is, we will define and apply key concepts such as environmental racism, culture of poverty, justice, and equality and rights. In conjunction with this task, we will assist students in the development of critical theological reflection by defining and applying the concepts of praxis, solidarity, and development/liberation. Thus, this seminar will serve the purpose of presenting the view that all peoples have the right to a clean, healthy, and livable environment regardless of their social or economic conditions.
This seminar encompasses two major components. First, participants will begin their exploration by attending 4 pre-immersion class sessions. These will entail presentations and group discussions, which will assist in fostering critical theological reflection on environmental justice issues. Second, the immersion/community-based-learning component of this seminar will take place over a week during spring break 2010 in New Orleans. The immersion process will be very intense because students will divide their days between service work with Operation Helping Hands (i.e. gutting flooded homes) and learning through participatory discussion with individuals and community-based organizations struggling against environmental injustice. Operation Helping Hands is a volunteer program sponsored by Catholic Charities in Louisiana.
While in New Orleans we will meet with community representatives from the Loyola Law Clinic, the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, the Xavier University theology department, the Oakville Community, and the Broadmoor Community Development Organization. These representatives will assist us in exploring (1) the issues involved in defending the housing and voting rights of working class and low-income populations in New Orleans; (2) the status of environmental legal/justice work that pre-existed and increased after Hurricane Katrina; (3) the theological convictions both aiding and impeding personal and communal sustainment after Katrina, in New Orleans and Mississippi; (3) and the effects of the Industrial Pipe Landfill on a local Louisiana community (Oakville).
Seminar participants will spend some portion of the immersion experience with host families in the Broadmoor Community. Through experiencing this local hospitality, students will be invited reflect on the importance of hospitality in the midst of crisis.
